


The Ties That Confine Us

by Regndoft



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who: Scream of the Shalka
Genre: M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-06
Updated: 2014-05-06
Packaged: 2018-01-23 20:18:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1578179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Regndoft/pseuds/Regndoft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since returning from the more-or-less dead, the Master had more than enough time to contemplate the Doctor’s motivations for bringing him back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ties That Confine Us

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally supposed to be a more humouristic fic, exploring the exact circumstances of the Soup Incident (yes, that is indeed a thing that happened, according to Paul Cornell's novelisation of Scream of the Shalka). The finished product however is more the result of me musing over the Doctor and the Master's early relationship in Shalkaverse, before ascending to the of state of married bliss (well, as close as those two will ever get to it at least) we know from canon.

Since returning from the more-or-less dead, the Master had more than enough time to contemplate the Doctor’s motivations for bringing him back.

He’d considered and dismissed guilt, and a genuine desire for company was so unlikely he’d hardly given it any thought. A masochistic need for punishment was the most likely contender; the Doctor had always had a streak of martyrdom that ran strong in this particular regeneration. Coupled with a predisposition to melodrama, he made their coexistence even more tedious than the Master imagined most of his previous selves would have. 

But this time not even the Doctor could be blamed properly for what had happened. 

“Stop frowning. Do you want to smell like _soupe à l’oignon_ for the rest of the decade?”

“I will stop when you’re not waving that rag in front of me,” he said, wrinkling his nose at the worn piece of cloth. “I’ve already made myself presentable again. I’m not an _infant_ , Doctor, whatever you might be inclined to think of your companions after travelling with humans for so long.”

“You obviously made a less than satisfactory job, since there’s soup in your hairline.”

He was just about to protest when a damp rag was pressed into his face, presumably to shut him up. As the only thing that could make the situation even more undignified would be sputtering into it, the Master forced himself to grit his teeth and plan vengeance in the small, bordering on petty ways he could these days. 

It had been an accident. They’d been playing hosts to a birdlike species in a remote galaxy even by the Master’s well-travelled standards, after a successful attempt at rendering an invading fleet of Vardans unsuccessful. At least, that was what the Doctor had told him after stumbling into the TARDIS and ordering the Master to conjure up food for their guests; the Master had, as always, been unable to leave the ship and actually witness the events that had led to the celebrations.

As if the indignity of playing caterer hadn’t been enough, the Doctor had insisted that the Master stay and mingle out of courtesy. Once the aliens had realised whose companion he was, he wouldn’t have been able to wrench himself away from them if he’d tried. When a particularly preening individual had run into him next to the soup, it wasn’t even the first time that evening.

Unfortunately, the Master was in the minority of beings in the universe whose face was less attached to him than the other way around. Which was why he’d found himself fishing after it in the soup tureen with a pair of silver tongs.

He’d fumbled with the tongs for exactly one minute and twelve seconds before getting a secure grip. No one had laughed, but unable to blink rendered him acutely aware of everyone in the room politely looking away. The knowledge that he’d been pitied and spared further ridicule was almost the most humiliating part. He’d wiped his face quickly before returning to the guests, his pride not allowing him to retreat into solitude.

These days, he didn’t need to clean himself properly; he’d wipe his hands and face when he had to, but showers weren’t strictly necessary without any bodily secretions to get rid of. Baths were a luxury he’d indulged in frequently in the past, and he had for a while continued to do so even after having acquired his current body. But that and other hedonistic pleasures of his had lost their appeal once he’d realised you could hardly indulge in anything when indulging was all there was left to do. Oh, he tried to come up with ways to occupy himself, but any activity he engaged in he did because he knew that if he didn’t, he would have nothing else to do. 

He missed having _projects_ , a goal to work towards. The Doctor might consider his altruistic habit of saving planets a preoccupation at most, but the Master had a calling. A calling he wasn’t free to pursue, or anything else for that matter, in their current arrangement.

The Doctor’s hand dabbed the Master’s brow and cheeks in a surprisingly gentle manner, a gesture that would’ve been intimate if not for the mechanical routine behind the movements.

The Master might’ve wanted that intimacy some time ago. He would’ve wanted it if the circumstances had been anything but what they were. Even despite them he wanted it, and that made the Doctor’s unwillingness to act even more unacceptable; that he would deny the Master his freedom and then act as if taking what he had claimed was just one step too far.

The Doctor knew this, and the Master knew he knew because he always pretended he didn’t.

“I enjoyed myself today, you know.”

He’d tried to convince him once, early on. The Doctor had walked away bruised, but he had walked away.

“Saving another backwater civilisation, surrounding yourself with an inferior species who practically worship the ground you walk upon? Of course you did.”

The Master expected the Doctor to bite back with something equally acerbic; instead the Doctor let his hand drop. For a moment, he could feel the Doctor’s thumb stroke the bristle of his beard. It didn’t last for more than a second, but that was long enough. 

“Not being alone,” he began, and paused: “surrounding myself with people I’ve—“

“Fixed,” the Master supplied with a sneer, “so predictable, my _dear_ Doctor. Is that why I’m here? To remind you, in your self-imposed isolation and self-pity, that there was someone you could save?”

The Doctor kneeled in front of him, eyes filled with something unidentifiable beneath his knitted brows. 

“Helped,” he said after a moment. “People who are happier when they leave me than before they met me.”

They sat like that for a while; the Master on a green, velvet-clad footstool in the now empty control room, the Doctor kneeling in front of him with the rag clutched between spindly fingers. The winding stairs of the TARDIS twisted and turned like so many dark paths above them. 

The Master folded his hands in his lap. The Doctor stood and made to escape into the shadows of one of the ship’s corridors.

“Some people grow wiser with age—at least before they begin to grow foolish.”

A moment passed before the Doctor’s haughty voice echoed between the gothic valves of the control room.

“I wasn’t the one who lost my face today. Literally.”

Sighing wasn’t a natural reflex with artificial lungs, but the Doctor must’ve deemed the ability either a prerequisite part of humanoid interaction or of the Master in particular, because it came quite easy to him even now.

“It is not the worst indignity I’ve suffered since we reached our current arrangement,” he said and shrugged. 

He stood up to take in the Doctor’s expression from a proper angle; he was satisfied to see his mouth pressed into a thin line of frustration.

“May I remind you that it’s be quite beneath you to—“

“And it is quite beneath _you_ , Doctor,” the Master interrupted, “to wallow in what-ifs and has-beens. Avoiding change is impossible; ignoring it is mere luxury. Stagnation, for people such as us, is nothing but torment.” 

He hesitated before adding: “And there is quite a difference between not being able to have the things we want and not allowing ourselves to have them.”

Feathers in shades of purple and blue were strewn across the floor like the petals of some foreign flower. The Master tread upon them with every ounce of dignity and control he possessed.

In a way, he was grateful. As long as he didn’t have his freedom, he could almost ignore that if circumstances had been different, he would have wanted to stay; that if the Doctor _needed_ him he wasn’t sure he’d be able to leave.

Perhaps the Doctor felt something similar.


End file.
